


who can be against me

by gleed



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Hawke in the Fade, I would tag other characters but they are only mentioned, and most of the time they are in the form of demons anyway SO, fenhawke is mentioned but this is not a shippy fic, it's about Hawke mostly, short n sweet except it's not it's short and painful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:36:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6716449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleed/pseuds/gleed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fade was different when it’s not a part of dreams, when you are not to be swiftly snapped from its grip when you awake. Hawke’s footfalls did not sound like a man’s, they sounded like a creature’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who can be against me

Shadows existed in two forms there – the ones cast by walkers and the ones everywhere else.

The Fade was different when it’s not a part of dreams, when you are not to be swiftly snapped from its grip when you awake. Hawke’s footfalls did not sound like a man’s, they sounded like a creature’s. They sounded like flames there, beneath the ashes of something that wasn’t burnt, had always been charcoal. Everything was too hot and too cold all at once, oppressive and muggy, distant and frigid, clawing at Hawke’s bones and licking over his skin.

He could not stop walking.

To stop walking was to admit defeat.

He followed the path that clears.

He saw demons. Maker _knows_ he saw demons with all the cruel faces and cold hands of people he loved and hated alike. Guilt, who looked like Bethany when she was ten, her messy hair in oily plaits, the dog clutched between her baby fat arms; Regret, who looked like Anders with a knife between his shoulder blades, hands crumbling like burnt brick, like a building blown to smithereens; Pride, who looked like his mother when he was young and she still towered over him, when she expected great things from a boy who was destined to be held down by other people’s struggles.

He was waiting for one that looked like Fenris.

Desire – of course, there was no denying that Hawke couldn’t face a desire demon that didn’t carry his lover’s face – who had emerged from the shadows looking like Fenris when he was his most gorgeous. Tired, eyes hanging softly and lips drawn gentle and hazy. This was the Fenris he should see underneath bed sheets warm from the night before, his fingers curled into Hawke’s bicep, thigh pressed against Hawke’s waist. He did not give in because he laughed, thinking how foolish it seemed that his desire demon was not Fenris gloriously naked or slickened with sweat, but Fenris safe and happy and ready to sleep.

The desire demon scowled at him and dissipated into smoke as Hawke sauntered past.

Hisses like Fenris’ voice swam in and out of his ears, but he ignored them, swept his fingers through the sticky splashes of spider gore over his armour. He held his head high and squinted his eyes in the hopes that he was staring straight at a demon somewhere in the distance, dragging his blood blackened middle finger over the bridge of his nose. He hoped a demon somewhere felt threatened.

The ground underneath his feet did not feel like ground, and he couldn’t see it for the whatever it was ( _sometimes fog, sometimes water, sometimes wretched, awful blood_ ) that swirled around his feet and ankles. When he felt like the ground was shaking, like he was being picked up and held just above the ground or like he was Isabela on her swaying ship, he fell.

 _Snap_ his knees connected with the ground. He felt the warmth of blood trickling down his calves. When his face met the ground his mouth was filled with what tasted like dirt, but could be all manner of awful things. He ground his teeth like there were rocks between his molars and he tried to spit out what was probably not there at all.

“If this is bloody it,” he growled to the green that was drowning his eyes, “If I became the Maker damn Champion of Kirkwall and joined this bloody Inquisition and killed that arselicking spider so I could _die_ on the _ground_ like a – like a…”

With some trouble he rolled onto his back, clenched his eyes together when his armour clattered and stuck into his skin.

“Like a…like a dog.” he grinned stupidly, eyes flooding with salt, “Like a,” _sob_ , “Ferelden doglord.” _laugh_ , “What a way to go.”

He wondered if he would feel his heart slow down, if, when his skin went cold, he would miss the warmth. He wondered if the Inquisitor felt guilty about leaving him here, or if she’d bitten her lip stubbornly and returned to Skyhold where Ambassador Montilyet would be waiting for her with sad eyes and open arms. He thought about letters Varric would have to write and how they’d be sobbed over by frail blood mages and thrown overboard by wayward pirates and folded respectively by flame headed guard captains.

And ripped to shreds by metal hands.

And never read by distraught apostates.

Hawke closed his eyes in the fade and wondered if the Champion of Kirkwall would be a remembered name. He’d gone a long time hoping it wouldn’t be.

But now he wasn’t so sure.

**Author's Note:**

> listened to my Hawke in the Fade fanmix while writing this and literally cried :))) HMU in the comments for the tracklist if u love 2 die
> 
> (also yes that was a heavy hint at femInquisitor/Josephine fghT ME)


End file.
